Quote

The royal family's existence is a constant reminder of the hollowness of John Major's rhetoric, and idiotic statements by its leading members a constant boost to the republican cause. They're fine opening hospitals. It's when they open their mouths they get into trouble.

Alastair Campbell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alastair Campbell
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: May 25
Diarist
Journalist
Novelist
Politician
Keighley
West Yorkshire
Alastair John Campbell
Existence
Constant
Hospitals
Family
Members
Leading
Hollowness
Republican
Statements
Idiotic
Cause
John
Reminder
Fine
Opening
Boost
Trouble
Majors
Reminders
Open
Mouths
Rhetoric
Causes
Major
Royal

More quotes by Alastair Campbell

Image
Failure, it is thought, is what sells, and what people want to hear and read about. I am not so sure.
Alastair Campbell
Image
I used to be very routine-based and the new thing in my life is not having a clear, full-time existence.
Alastair Campbell
Image
My dad, Donald, was a vet and had a practice in Yorkshire. Cats and dogs were his bread and butter, but his greatest love was large animals.
Alastair Campbell
Image
I feel like thanking Paul Dacre every time, because the reason they ask me is because they think I've come through the other end with a pretty good reputation. Loads of people get a bad press but have a good reputation. [David] Beckham - think what he went through. [Bill] Clinton, likewise. You just have to be true to yourself.
Alastair Campbell
Image
As Tony [Blair] said in his book, Gordon [Brown] was brilliant and impossible. If he'd just been one of those things, the options are obvious.
Alastair Campbell
Image
I hold no candle for George Osborne whatsoever. He has no strategic skills, is a hopeless chancellor, has no idea how most people have to live and his policies are failing and hurting millions.
Alastair Campbell
Image
One of the more fatuous remarks I've heard in recent days is that 'My Life,' Clinton's autobiography, is too long and, at almost 1,000 pages, short it is not. But this man was for eight years the President of the most powerful country on earth.
Alastair Campbell
Image
If you look at the other people around at the time - Charles Clarke, Alistair Darling, Jack Straw - they've all gone. And they're not old. What's happened is that someone who is quite old - Jeremy Corbyn - is now leader. We have to take some responsibility for that.
Alastair Campbell
Image
Greg Dyke is on record as saying that once the BBC was attacked, it was their job to defend themselves. But that is not their job.
Alastair Campbell
Image
So here is one of my theories on happiness: we cannot know if we have lived a truly happy life until the very end. This view of life and death was reinforced by my close witnessing of the buildup to the death of Philip Gould. Philip was without doubt my closest friend in politics. When he died, I felt like I had lost a limb.
Alastair Campbell
Image
Clinton is a big personality who has led a big life, and for some of the media conventional wisdom to boil it down to a view that 'all people are really interested in' are a few moments of madness in the Oval Office gets him, the importance of the presidency, and the significance of his life, all wrong.
Alastair Campbell
Image
The day of the daredevil reporter who refuses to see obstacles to getting the truth, and seeing it with his or her own eyes, seems to have died.
Alastair Campbell
Image
Tony's [Blair] convinced I'm going to find God. I do have spiritual moments, but I don't think it's God.
Alastair Campbell
Image
By asking the question 'Am I happy?,' and via the answer setting out what I mean by happiness, there is a political route that can be taken, by asking another question - 'Can politics deliver happiness, and should it try?'
Alastair Campbell
Image
The junk food of political journalism...all reshuffle stories are crap.
Alastair Campbell
Image
I had a happy childhood.
Alastair Campbell
Image
One in four of us will have a mental illness at some point. That is a lot of people.
Alastair Campbell
Image
Tony [Blair] slowly sucked me back in for the 2005 campaign, and from six months out, I was basically working full time trying to keep the Tony[Blair] - Gordon[Brown] thing together for the campaign. It was awful.
Alastair Campbell
Image
The bad news for journalists today is that the media, however seriously people who are in the public eye take it, is not taken as seriously as it once was - by the public.
Alastair Campbell
Image
My closest friend, who died not long ago, is buried near Marx's grave in Highgate cemetery, so I see the gaggle of admirers laying roses at the foot of his tombstone regularly. I have never been tempted to leave flowers there myself. Great theories, shame about the practice. Marx did many things. But inventing class was not one of them.
Alastair Campbell